


Who We Were

by Miri1984



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Peter is way more manipulative than you might think, What if?, everything is connected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 20:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18835975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984
Summary: A statement giver is strangely familiar to Jon. Martin and Peter explain why.





	Who We Were

There was something familiar about the man, Jon couldn’t quite place it. He had once been tall but was now stooped and hollow looking - in a manner that made Jon think he may have been ravaged by disease or ill health. He had a lopsided, self deprecating smile and a voice… it set Jon at ease, even though the statement he gave was anything but reassuring.

To do with the Lonely, he thought as the man rambled about being lost, somewhere in the back streets of Liverpool. He talked about his wife and son losing sight of him, and Jon Knew that he was only partially telling the truth. The statements have some wiggle room, that this man had, in part, wanted to be free of the responsibilities of his family was obvious enough.

The Lukases did, after all, try to take advantage of the natural inclinations of their victims. Naomi Herne had always preferred solitude, until it had been forced upon her unwillingly.

Something prodded at the edge of his knowing though, while the man talked. Jon resisted, out of habit, mainly. He’d been practicing with Basira, trying desperately not to know more about her than she wanted him to in a probably vain attempt to regain some measure of her trust. This knowing, though, this pushed insistently all the way through the man’s statement and Jon found himself becoming more and more agitated, trying to keep the door closed.

It was the moment when he brushed a cobweb from his desk, realising as he did so that the thin strand of silk was connected to the sleeve of the man sitting in front of him, as he looked up into eyes that were so achingly familiar that the Knowing became inevitable.

The man had just finished rattling off some minor detail about his son’s smile - heart-rending and poignant, no doubt, but Jon fixated on what he’d called him.

“Marty was always so full of life, so friendly. I can’t bear to think of him having to grow up without me.”

Jon’s voice was icy cold and he didn’t hesitate to put the full force of compulsion behind it with his next question. “Why did you come here, Mr Henderson?”

The man blinked. “To see if you can help me track down my family,” he said. “The police seem to think that I might… that I left because I was… They didn’t believe me when I told them I’d been kidnapped.”

“They thought you were abusive and you were trying to find them to hurt them,” Jon said.

Henderson looked askance at that and another piece of knowledge landed in Jon’s lap.

“I know Georgina took her maiden name again, but I’ve had no luck tracking her down. Things are so different now, you used to just be able to look someone up in the phone book and I…”

“Well,” Jon let out a breath. There was no point in this. The web wanted Ian Henderson here for whatever reason. To distract Jon, probably, or to try to tempt Martin back away from the Lonely. Maybe it would work, if Martin was to walk into the room right now (which he hadn’t done for months) or if Peter Lukas realised that the Spider was interfering in his plans…

Martin walked into Jon’s office.

Jon was halfway out of his seat before the door had even fully opened, and Ian Henderson looked up into a face that was, aside from the years he carried, almost identical to his own. Jon had been blind not to see it at once, and Martin saw it every morning when he looked into a mirror. There could be no doubt who this man was.

Ian stood, slowly. He was slightly shorter than Martin. There was grey peppered liberally through his hair, that despite its length still had that cheerful curl that made Martin seem so much younger than his thirty years.

They were both handsome men, but Jon had never been one to care about looks and his knowledge instead overlaid those broad shoulders, those strong hands, those liquid eyes with the cracks and crevices of betrayal, longing and loneliness.

Always. Loneliness.

The silence was less awkward than Jon would have thought. He might have been forgiven for thinking he was dreaming, if his dreams were not utterly and completely predictable, these days. And certainly when he imagined being able to see - to speak -  to Martin again - in those darkened, childish fantasies where everything turned out okay and the world didn’t end around them - in those fantasies there had definitely not been a complication the likes of this.

“Da… dad?” Martin said.

 

#

 

Ian Henderson reached out a hand towards Martin’s face and Jon saw Martin flinch back. “Martin,” Jon said, trying to keep his voice level. “Mr Henderson was just giving a statement.”

“A statement?” Martin’s voice went high and incredulous. “Really?”

“Marty?” Henderson said. “Marty… is… why are you… how _old_ are you? How long have I been gone?”

“Oh no,” Martin said, shaking his head, moving backwards, raising his hands as though to push Henderson away. “No this is some… this is some scheme of Elias’. Some trick. You’re not… you’re _not_ my father.” The last was shot at Jon and Jon nearly sat back down at the force of it. There was no compulsion there, but Jon almost wanted to babble out his entire life story in response to Martin’s rage. Jon could tell him the truth. Jon could compel it from Ian so that Martin had proof. But that didn’t seem like a prudent course of action, no matter that hurt and anger roiled in his gut at all the things this development might represent.

He sighed. “I think the web brought him here,” Jon said. “He’s been a prisoner of the Lonely. For at least fifteen years.”

The heat in Martin’s gaze turned to ice. “A prisoner of the Lonely,” he said.

“What… you both… how do you…” Ian Henderson was almost comic in his utter ignorance. Jon tried to remember what it had been like, to be so clueless about the horrors of the world.

Martin’s hands curled into fists. “Peter,” he said, softly, but firmly. _“Peter.”_

There was a twisting that reminded Jon of Helen and the air nearest the door blurred. He’d honestly not even tried to imagine what Peter might look like, although he had some vague ideas about a swarthy sea captain when he’d first appeared in the statements.

He hadn’t expected someone quite so… handsome, he supposed, with a twinkle in his incredibly blue eyes that faded when they fell on the tableau of Martin and his father. A slight lift of his eyebrow as he looked at Jon made Jon feel a little smug. Of course, Peter was still capable of surprise. He was no Elias.

Jon hated the small surge of feeling that thought brought with it, that he could somehow be proud of the abilities of his patron. He really was a monster.

“Well now,” Peter said. “Isn’t this interesting.”

Jon honestly thought Martin might spit at the man. “What did you do?” Martin asked.

Peter chuckled and shook his head and Martin looked at Jon, mutely requesting help. Jon opened his mouth but Peter held up a hand and Jon felt cold clench around his heart to the point where he gasped.

“I wouldn’t, Archivist,” Peter said. “I really wouldn’t.”

Martin parted his lips in a snarl. “Don’t you _dare_ hurt him.”

“Marty?” Ian’s voice was fading and Jon realised, too late, that his outline was becoming blurry, full of static. “Marty what’s…”

Martin spun. “Peter!”

Peter laughed again, although there was very little humour in it. “Oh come on now, Martin. You don’t really want him back in your life now do you? He’s been alone for so very long, he’d be a lot more trouble to take care of than your mother was. Trauma, you understand. It does damage a person!”

Ian’s lips were still moving, but no sound escaped them. Jon could tell the exact moment Martin stopped being able to see him. It took a moment longer for the last of his outline to fade from Jon’s vision, and no amount of Looking, of Knowing, could bring him back.

Martin’s voice trembled as much as his hand as he pointed at Peter. _“You_ took him. You took him from her. You _made_ her hate me.”

Peter parted his hands, serenity in his expression. “Not exactly. He’d already left, you know. Already abandoned you both. I was really doing you a favour. If he’d stayed he would have come back, probably, but he would have been shiftless. A bad father.”

“She wouldn’t have hated me, though,” Martin said, and tears stood in his eyes. “We would have had each other.”  
“Oh Martin really. Mothers shouldn’t hate their children, even if they do look like the men who ruin their lives. She really wasn’t all that good a parent, in the end, was she? Isn’t it better that you knew that?”

“She wouldn’t have… She was hurt. She was…”

“Elias showed you enough that you know that isn’t true, Martin. He’s very good at what he does. And if you hadn’t ended up at the institute, you would never have met Jon.”

Martin turned his gaze on Jon again and Jon resisted the urge to look down.

“We’re done,” Martin said.

“Oh Martin. We still have an Extinction to stop! Don’t let one little setback doom the entire world!”

“You said you needed someone touched by the Eye, not another fucking avatar. I’m not going to be that for you any more..”

“But I _like_ you, Martin. We get on, don’t we? You’ve taught me so much and you’re still so… very lonely.”

“And it’s your fault!” Martin cried, and a tear definitely fell, then. Jon ached to touch him. Comfort him somehow.

“You would never have met Jon,” Peter said again. “You would never have managed to thoroughly stump Elias and have him end up in chains, well done on that by the way, I always did think chains suited him. It was Elias that told you your father was down here, wasn’t it?”

Martin nodded, shortly. Of course, Elias was still watching the institute. Of course he would have known who was in Jon’s office. The thinness of Peter’s lips, though, on learning Elias had for all intents and purposes, betrayed him, made Jon think there was far less cooperation between the two of them than he had at first assumed.

“Bring him back,” Martin said then, but his voice was small and Jon knew there was no conviction behind it.

“No can do, I’m afraid,” Peter said. “I’m astonished the web managed it, but Annabel has always been canny that way. She won’t be able to do it again and the world definitely does not miss Ian Henderson, Martin. You know that as well as I do.”

“He’s my father,” Martin said, simply.

“No,” Peter said. “You have a new family now. And don’t forget all this impending doom! We’ve come such a long way in our plans to stop the Extinction. It would be such a waste if you...”

“I think I’d rather they have the world than you,” Martin said.

Peter tutted, but his face was hard. “No,” he said. “You wouldn’t.”

“Go away, Peter,” Martin said then, and Peter, much to Jon’s surprise, did. One second he was there, the next he was gone, and Jon had more questions than he knew how to phrase. He turned to Martin, who was standing and looking at the place where Ian had been, arms hanging loosely at his sides.

“Martin,” Jon started, then saw that Martin’s shoulders were shaking with silent sobs.

“It doesn’t matter,” Martin said, voice low and halting as tears fell. “It doesn’t matter why he left, in the end, does it? We all knew they were monsters. That they’d feed on us and kill us when they’ve sucked us dry and they do not care.”

“We can try to find…”

Martin shook his head violently. “You heard what Peter said. We have an extinction to stop. If I can… if we can stop it then we can deal with… with him. Try to free the people he has.”

Jon winced, thinking of the people still in the buried, thinking of his conscious decision not to try to save them.

He reached out a hand, hesitant. Almost certain Martin was going to leave. Martin turned to him, though, and Jon didn't Know what gave him that set of his shoulders, that strength, but Jon was very afraid if he tried to find out he would not like it.

They are not the same as they were. They never will be again.

**Author's Note:**

> I utterly made up everything about Martin's dad, and his mum, we never find out her name? I don't think? If so please enlighten me. But it all seems a bit convenient that he's such a ripe target for the lonely. Maybe Peter sets the seeds for lots of potential avatars?


End file.
